


I Won't Let You Fall (Again)

by This_Time_I_Wont_Regret_My_Username



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Artist Draco Malfoy, Depression, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, POV Harry Potter, Painting, Panic Attacks, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Writer Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23781868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_Time_I_Wont_Regret_My_Username/pseuds/This_Time_I_Wont_Regret_My_Username
Summary: Harry hasn't refilled his prescription in months. It's hard for him to smile unless Ron and Hermione are with him, but he only sees them on Sundays. Oh, and his book is utter shit, apparently. The only thing that's keeping him grounded is the fact that Draco Malfoy keeps painting more paintings, and Harry keeps buying them. But, eventually, even that isn't enough.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 18
Kudos: 192





	I Won't Let You Fall (Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so freaking much to Lily (@triggerlil) for being my wonderful beta and buddy for this. Like. GAH. No words can describe how amazing she is.

Hermione’s heels click on the stone floor as she comes up behind Harry. He doesn’t have to turn to see that it’s her, because he knows by the sound of her footsteps. He gives a small smile to her as she steps up beside him, taking in her appearance. 

Her hair is a little frazzled and her face a little flushed, but she otherwise looks completely relaxed. It’s good to know. Hermione works so hard to upkeep the gallery that Harry worries often about her overworking herself. 

“Is it more enjoyable than you thought it would be?” she asks hopefully. Truthfully, he isn’t exactly been having the best time, but it’s not the worst either. 

“No, I’m here because I like being bored,” he says sarcastically. Hermione rolls her eyes and hits his arm lightly, and he huffs a laugh as he tries half-heartedly to bat her hand away. 

“Anything catch your eye?” she asks curiously. Harry hums and shakes his head. Most of the artwork in the exhibition isn’t really Harry’s kind of thing. He doesn’t really _get_ most of the pieces. 

They chat for a little while longer before Hermione has to rush away and do whatever it is that she has to do, leaving Harry to wander aimlessly around the gallery. It’s a little while of walking around, not really paying attention to what he’s seeing, until his eyes land on a certain painting. He stops in his tracks, tilting his head to the side as he takes it in. 

It’s a cliffside. The clouds are dark and rolling, as though rain is about to break and pour from them, the waves crashing against the rocks. Harry’s throat tightens when he sees a hand, stretched towards the sky, disappearing from view off the side of the cliff. As though someone had jumped, and the artist had captured the moment when this person had felt a rush of falling and the sudden fear of death. 

He can really only tear his eyes away from it to look at the small card beneath it, stating its name. 

_Misstep_. 

So the person hadn’t jumped, then. They’d taken one wrong step and fallen. Harry is struck with disappointment, which he doesn’t understand, and it upsets him to try and figure out why. So he stares at the painting instead, tipping his head from side to side as though a different angle would reveal the face of the person who’d fallen. 

Hermione finds him later, still staring at it. It seems as though he finds something new every time he looks at it. She puts a gentle hand on his elbow and smiles at him. 

“You like it?” she asks. Her words bounce around the room, a shadow of the voices that filled it earlier. Most everyone has left by now. But something about this painting draws him in, and he can’t tear his eyes away from it. He feels as though it’s important. 

“Yes. Can I buy it?” he asks. Hermione stares at him for a moment, taken off guard by his request. She invited him there, but it had taken a lot of convincing in order to actually get him to come. And now, he’s so enamored with a painting that he wants to buy it. It’s hard for even Harry to understand.

“Yes,” Hermione finally says. She seems to have settled some issue in her mind, because she relaxes and gives him a relieved smile. Harry lays his hand over hers, only taking his eyes away from _Misstep_ to follow her to her office. 

~xXx~

Two weeks later, Harry hangs the painting on the blank expanse of his bedroom wall. It had cost a pretty penny, but he finds that it fills the emptiness of his flat. When he sees it on the wall, it’s like it had been there all along, which makes some part of Harry feel warm. 

It’s about time that he decorated his flat, too. 

Harry stares at _Misstep_ a lot. If he closes his eyes, he can almost smell the sea, hear the waves. He wonders a lot about who fell—what had they been doing so close to the edge? Who were they? Did their family miss them? 

He shakes those thoughts away, because they’re pointless questions. This painting is just a painting and, as far as Harry knows, there may not even be a person attached to that hand. Artists can be strange like that, he thinks, and maybe that’s been the joke of this piece all along. 

Harry’s days move more normally after the interruption of the exhibition. 

During the week, Harry wakes up and goes to work, and then comes home and bakes or writes. He goes to sleep when his eyes start to hurt—around two in the morning—and wakes up five hours later at seven. He showers, goes to work, and the process repeats itself. 

Saturdays are for writing, or laying in bed, or baking, or trying something new. Sometimes he tries things he hasn’t done in years, like practicing his cello, but those experiences are rare. He mostly stays inside his little flat, keeping to himself. If it rains, he will sit on the balcony and let the drops and wind carry him somewhere else. 

Hermione and Ron visit him on Sundays. They usually come for tea and to chat, sometimes for lunch, and _maybe Harry would like to go out to dinner on Friday_? Harry sometimes says yes, but mostly says no. Harry usually asks Hermione to read a chapter or two of his novel, and Ron will sit alone with Harry on the balcony with a beer.

That’s where Harry finds himself almost a month after buying _Misstep_ , his mind wandering, staring over the dark street which is his world. He frowns a little bit. They need more streetlights. 

“You doing alright, mate?” Ron asks softly. His voice cuts through Harry’s thoughts like a knife, and Harry is grateful. He takes a sip of his beer before answering, pulling a face, watching as Ron’s lip twitches in amusement. This is Ron’s preferred drink, not Harry’s.

“Yeah. I’ve been tired lately, with the book, but it’s pretty fulfilling,” he says. It’s not the entire truth, but he doesn’t feel like he needs to share that right now. 

“That’s good. You know I’m always here for you, if you need me,” Ron says. His expression is open and solemn, no doubt thinking of things that Harry isn’t ready to think of himself. 

“I know. Thank you,” Harry replies. They fall back into silence for a little while. Harry watches a few teenagers pass by the sidewalk beneath them, laughing loudly and joking around. Harry thinks they seem familiar, and there’s a strange ache in his heart when he realizes they remind him of how him, Ron, and Hermione used to be. 

_Used_ to be. 

Some time later, the patio door slides open and Hermione steps out, Harry’s laptop in hand. She sits in the third chair, placing the laptop on her lap, and talks to Harry about her thoughts on the latest chapters. Harry relaxes (the weirdest thing is that he doesn’t know when he tensed up) and is able to laugh and nod with what Hermione is saying. 

Around ten, they step back inside to say their goodbyes. This is how it usually is, and Harry is content. 

“It’s always good to see you like this, mate,” Ron says. Hermione nods along seriously, and Harry doesn’t like to see them agreeing on these things—not because it’s strange, but because he doesn’t want them both to start thinking he’s not okay. 

“Well, I _am_ pretty amazing, it’d be a shame if you didn’t get to see me,” he jokes. Ron laughs, and Harry’s unsureness breaks. 

His mind categorizes it, as he has to do again and again. Laugher = good. Seriousness = bad.

“Oh!” Hermione exclaims suddenly, remembering something she must have wanted to say earlier. “Could you take Crookshanks for a few weeks? He’s been getting into the paint, somehow, no matter how much we tape down the lids. Plus, I don’t want him getting hurt by anything.” 

Harry smiles when he thinks of the little cat—well, not _little_ , but cute. It seems just like Crookshanks to stubbornly keep getting into the paint buckets. Hermione and Ron are remodeling their new home—and Harry both understands the stress and always loves to see Crookshanks—so how could he say no?

“Yeah, I’d be happy to!” Harry says. Hermione beams, thanks him, hugs him tightly, and thanks him again. Ron hugs him even tighter than Hermione, and then they make their leave after half a dozen goodbyes and “call us tomorrow”s.

Harry makes his way down the hall, back into the kitchen to clear up the dishes. On the bare, clean countertop, he finds a note: 

_Breakfast 7:15 (with your pills!!)_

_Lunch 12:30_

_Dinner 7:00_

_Please don’t forget to eat, Harry. You know your pills always help you after a couple of weeks, so please don’t give up taking them! We love you. Put this note on the fridge as a reminder and set alarms if you have to! We’re always here for you, and we’re so proud of you._

_Love, Hermione_

Harry traces Hermione’s letters with a shaky finger. _Pills love eat proud, pills eat proud love, eat love pills proud…_ A drop of water falls onto the corner of the note, barely missing the ink, and he looks up to see if there’s a leak. And then he realizes that it was a tear. 

Oh. 

He wipes his eye and decides that he won’t tell Hermione that he hasn’t refilled his prescription in months. It would only worry her, and worry is the last thing she needs right now. 

But he also knows Hermione is usually right, even if he doesn’t agree with her. As per her instructions, he sets alarms on his phone and slides the note under a magnet on his fridge. He frowns when he realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything he’s baked in the last few weeks. He’s given it to his neighbors or Ron, or else it’s sitting untouched inside his fridge.

Maybe Hermione is onto something. 

With a sigh and a shake of his head, he switches off the kitchen light and walks across the hall to his bedroom. His footsteps pad lightly on the floor, a soothing, comforting sound. He remembers Ron’s comments on how acutely aware Harry has always been of footsteps, and isn’t that a cute thing that someone would love about him if they got to know him? 

Harry disagrees. He just used to need to be aware of those things, that’s all. Aunt Petunia’s footsteps used to sound differently than Dudley’s. It was best to know ahead of time if he was going to be forced to clean or get punched. They’re very different things. 

He brushes his teeth and slips off his shirt for bed, pushing aside the memories of the Dursleys. Just as he’s about to turn off his bedside lamp, his eyes catch sight of the painting. He stares at it for a long moment, a small warm feeling bursting in his chest as he spots it. 

Harry pulls the chain of the lamp and the room is bathed in darkness. He goes to sleep with the words _I won’t let you take that wrong step_ floating around in his head. 

~xXx~

Harry eventually asks Hermione if there are more paintings by the same person who made _Misstep_. She gets a gleam in her eye and leans across the table to pull his laptop away from him. He lets it go without much more than an inquisitive look, knowing she’s likely going to show him the artist’s other works. 

“His name is Draco Malfoy. He’s an arse, but his craft is so well rounded that it’d be a crime not to recognize him,” Hermione says as her fingers tap expertly on the keyboard. 

Harry snorts at her remark on Malfoy’s personality, but doesn’t reply, instead sipping his tea.

“Here,” she says minutes later, spinning the laptop around so he can see. “This is one of his latest paintings. We’re in the process of adding it to the gallery.” 

Harry sets down his mug of tea and leans a little closer to the screen. It’s a portrait of a pale blonde woman, a cold expression on her face, yet somehow her blue eyes seem warm. 

_How would someone even accomplish that?_ Harry thinks. Personality be damned, he can’t deny that Malfoy is skilled, and that he admires it greatly.

The woman’s features are aristocratic, all sharp lines and a strong nose, and Harry thinks she’s beautiful.

He glances at the name of the portrait. _Mother._ This puzzles Harry for a moment. She seems far too cold and abrasive to be a mother to anyone. But then—those eyes are kind and soft. A mother’s eyes as she takes in the sight of her son painting her? 

Harry wonders when he started thinking things like this. The word “mother” means something to a small, distant part of himself, but he mostly has no connection with it. Aunt Petunia was a poor excuse of a mum, and Harry has not reconciled her face with that word since he was two.

He opens his mouth to comment on how it’s beautiful, but not something he’d want in his flat. But then he realizes that this woman is who Draco Malfoy thinks of when he thinks “mother.” And somehow, _that_ means something to Harry. 

He looks at Hermione with an easy smile, leaning back in his chair and grabbing his tea again. 

“I want this one too,” he says. Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up, and she scolds him about impulsively buying things before he reminds her that he could impulsively buy things for the next three lifetimes and still not make a dent in his bank account. 

She rolls her eyes, but says, “We’ll mark it as unavailable for purchase at the next exhibition, but only if you agree to come.” 

Harry is able to agree to it without hesitating this time. 

The exhibition two weeks later is the same as before. Harry wanders around politely, at least _trying_ to seem interested in the other works. Even though both he and Hermione know that he’s only there to see _Mother_. 

He finds it near where _Misstep_ was. It’s strange to think that it was almost two months ago—has it really been so long? It feels as though he’s simply been asleep this entire time and woken up just in time to see it. 

He stares for a little while at the portrait. He wonders whether this woman is actually Malfoy’s mother or not. Is that the point? That it’s just a model, and Malfoy himself has no mother to reference for the portrait? 

It’s wishful thinking, so Harry stops that line of thought. He shouldn’t wish that someone else understands those experiences, not enough to put it into a painting.

Hermione comes up beside him towards the end of the night, looping her arm through his. He carefully pulls his eyes away from the glint of Hermione’s wedding ring, because he’s not able to face it right now. He’s in one of those moods today, it seems. 

She squeezes his arm and rests her head on his shoulder. He’s able to relax a little bit. 

“Is she actually his mother?” he asks softly. Hermione is quiet for a few moments. 

“I think so. This looks like him,” she says. Harry hums and tilts his head to the side, resting his cheek against Hermione’s head so that he can see the portrait just a little bit differently. 

If he pretends he’s someone else—just for a moment—he can almost imagine that he’s the one who painted her.

~xXx~

Harry’s flat is starting to become filled with more and more paintings by Draco Malfoy. He’s created a bit of a collection, at this point. There are three on his living room wall, plus the one in his bedroom. 

One is a dense forest, fog clinging to the trees, a dark-haired woman dressed in white weeping in the middle of a clearing. It’s titled _The Fox_. It’s photo-realistic and it makes Harry admire how skilled Malfoy is at bringing things to life. Harry bought it because he couldn’t figure out the meaning of it—and he has yet to figure it out. Maybe someday he will. 

The second is more abstract. It looks as if ink is spreading throughout water, large dashes of colors, curling around the edges. It’s all greys and reds, splotches of black or green here and there. It’s called _Of a Mind_. It feels intimate and Harry thinks that this must be what it’s like to be Draco Malfoy: a few drops of ink spreading throughout water, not knowing where they’re going or what they’ll end up as.

Or at least, that’s what Harry gets from it. 

The final painting Harry bought doesn’t have a name. It’s of a dead, dried flower, held limply in a pale hand, the petals drooping towards the ground. The background is blurred, but Harry can see figures dressed in black, huddled together. The man stands far away from them. Hermione told him that Malfoy painted it after his wife died a few years ago. It makes Harry feel a distinct sense of loss that doesn’t belong to him. 

Draco Malfoy is also a photographer and a sculpter. Harry has yet to buy any of the sculptures or photographs. He doesn’t quite understand those yet, which often makes him feel inadequate. His only comfort is that maybe Malfoy doesn’t understand them himself. 

It’s Harry’s twenty-seventh birthday today. Hermione and Ron are due to come by at five for dinner and a small celebration. In the meantime, Harry sits at his desk and stares out the window, intending to finish the last chapter of his book, but he feels no sense of accomplishment when he thinks about the planned ending. 

It discourages him, so he ends up staring outside all afternoon with Crookshanks beside him. He absently scratches under Crookshanks’ chin, smiling a bit at the sound of purring and the feeling of fluff under his fingers. The cat is always a comforting presence. 

At four forty, Ron and Hermione ring up to him. Harry quickly lets them through, waits a couple of minutes for them to make it up to his floor, and flings open the door as soon as they knock. Hermione’s arms are around him in a second, choruses of “ _Happy birthday, Harry!”_ in his ear. He’s able to give a genuine smile at last, because Ron and Hermione always brighten him up a bit.

Ron is carrying a long, flat present that Harry immediately recognizes as a canvas. He smirks a little, but doesn’t say anything about it. They come inside and sit, Hermione talking a-mile-a-minute about anything and everything. Harry notices that Ron disappears into Harry’s bedroom for a moment and comes out carrying Crookshanks, cuddling him close. 

It makes Harry laugh, because he remembers a time when Ron abhorred the cat. 

And then, Hermione eagerly presses the present into his hands as Ron finally plops himself down onto the sofa. He thanks her and rips away the green wrapping paper—it’s a running joke for Ron to try and find a shade that matches Harry’s eyes—and then he’s staring back at himself.

It’s a painting. Of himself. Standing on a pier, looking down into still water with a gentle smile on his face, wearing clothes he actually owns, his hands tucked into his pockets. He can only stare for a few long minutes. 

“I… what is this?” he finally asks, voice breaking, looking up at Hermione. She’s beaming, but her fidgeting gives away how anxious she is for him to like it. 

“I made a bet with Draco that he couldn’t paint you in a scene I didn’t give him a reference for. I knew he’d be able to, but Draco can never resist a challenge,” Hermione says. Ron rolls his eyes and continues to stroke Crookshanks’ fur, choosing not to comment. Harry knows that he’s thinking about manipulative Hermione can be sometimes. 

“And he did it for free?” Harry asks incredulously. 

Hermione nods. “He said you’re a striking figure, and that’s more than enough payment.” 

Harry blushes deeply. He tries to imagine what Malfoy looks like in his head, but all he can conjure up is an image of pale hands moving in sweeping motions, a brush between those pale fingers. Yet, he knows that Malfoy would be more of a striking figure than himself. 

“Would you want to meet him?” Hermione asks, interrupting his thoughts. He can’t keep looking at her, so he looks down at his hands. He’s unsure now if he wants these hands to _be_ Malfoy’s, or if he wants to reach out and clasp Malfoy’s hand in his own instead. 

Harry thinks about Hermione’s question for a moment. 

“No,” he finally decides. He can’t even look up the man’s name, too afraid as he is to see what Draco looks like, let alone meet him. Hermione nods, as though she knew Harry was going to say no, and they fall into conversation about other things. 

Ron and Hermione each recall twenty-seven fond memories they have of Harry, in honor of his birthday. They laugh and drink over them, have dinner with Harry’s favorite movie. They wind down the evening with Hermione offering alternative endings to his novel while Ron falls asleep on the sofa with Crookshanks. 

Around eleven, Hermione and Harry finally decide to wake Ron up, and by eleven fifteen, they’re out the door. Harry shuffles around tiredly, washing the dishes as quickly as he possibly can so he can write. Hermione had a lot of good ideas that make him want to actually finish his book. 

He cleans up in the living room, and that’s when he remembers the painting. He looks around for a moment, wondering where he’s going to put it, and decides just to put it on the table until tomorrow. He sets it down and looks at it for a little while. 

His eyes keep gravitating towards that smile. Painting-Harry looks so serene and content… it makes him sad, because it’s not at all how he feels most of the time. When he looks at the water where painting-Harry’s reflection is, his heart skips a beat. The reflection isn’t smiling—it’s crying. 

Harry’s throat tightens up. He tears his eyes away and shuts off the lights so he won’t be tempted to look at it again. He won’t be writing tonight. 

Words bounce around his head, ones he’s fantasized about for what feels like forever, but now it seems like someone actually means them. 

_I see you_.

~xXx~

Harry stares at his empty prescription bottle. The letters of his name have faded. It’s been, what, five months since he’s taken them? He can’t remember why he poured them down the sink, now that he thinks about it. He knows how disappointed and upset Hermione would be if she found out. 

Harry contemplates this for a moment. Then he throws the bottle into the trash can, the lid falling over it and hiding it from view. Out of sight, out of mind, right? 

He pauses as he turns to leave the kitchen. Hermione’s note is still on the fridge. After a brief moment of hesitation, he rips it off and crumbles it, tossing it away too. 

His mind keeps turning back to the series of emails he’d gotten from publisher after publisher. _Sorry, not what we’re looking for. It’s just missing something. Rejected._

He could always self-publish, like Hermione says, but the chances of someone ever reading his book if he does that are less than if he’s able to get with a publishing company. All he really wants is for someone to read what he’s written and think it’s good enough for other people. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because of him, or if it’s just the nature of the publishing world, but his book isn’t _good enough_. It’s been almost a year and Harry’s done everything he can to make it good, to make it _mean_ something. 

Not enough. 

All he seems to do is sleep, work, sleep, work… He does nothing that means anything to _anyone._ Harry is all that’s left of his parents now, but what _good_ is he? All he does is buy someone else’s works, because some part of him knows his own will never make his mark on the world like Draco Malfoy has made on him. 

He’s suddenly aware that he’s shaking and his breaths are coming short. Harry is unable to stop them from becoming quick, raspy things stuttering in his chest. His vision starts to sharpen and blur as though going in and out of focus. In the back of his mind, he registers that he’s having a panic attack, so he does the only thing he can do. 

Harry takes off his glasses and stumbles into his bedroom, the world falling away around him as he nears the one thing he thinks will help him. _Misstep._

He presses his hand against the canvas, feeling the bumps and dips of paint beneath his fingertips, and the coolness of it calms him. With his glasses off, and his face inches away from it, all he can see are those fingers disappearing off the side of the cliff. 

He has to swallow down the anguish of knowing that Malfoy—this unreachable, yet incredibly real human being—will never know the way Harry looks at these paintings or why he bought them. He’ll never understand what they mean to Harry.

Since he bought the paintings, he sometimes thinks of the walls of his flat as blank canvases that he could be doing so much with. It makes him ache to think that these walls will never be used, that they got stuck with Harry when they could’ve gotten an artist. It’s so much potential wasted, with no artist to fill the flat with something beautiful. 

(Though, what he really means is: there is no Draco Malfoy here—no Draco to warm him from the inside out as his paintings have done; no Draco to come waltzing into his life and actually say, “ _I s_ _ee you too_.” There will never be a Draco Malfoy to paint on him all the pretty little things he will never be able to do himself.)

His heart clenches painfully, but he thinks then—as he’s staring at the painted fingers, imagining the person gone over the edge—that it would be a beautiful place to die. 

~xXx~

The cliffside stretches far beyond what Harry can see. The wind whips around him, cold and biting, offering no comfort. The air smells of salt and it’s crisp and bitter. He gives a small smile, because this is exactly what he thought it would be like, and closes his eyes against the wind. 

He stands there for a while, letting his mind turn blank. It’s peaceful and serene, and Harry feels a bit more like painting-Harry than he has in a long time. He was so happy to learn that the cliff was an actual place when he’d gone searching for it. It was only a couple hours away, too. 

A man steps up beside him. He has long blond hair, pulled back into a loose bun, and piercing grey eyes that make Harry’s heart race. A few strands of that blond hair move wildly in the wind.

“First time here?” the man asks loudly over the noise surrounding them. Harry looks back down at the rolling waves. The familiarity of the man is making him nervous, because he can’t remember from _where_ he knows him. 

“That obvious?” Harry asks. The man makes a sound that could be a laugh, if Harry wanted it to be. 

“No, I just haven’t seen you here before,” the man replies. Harry pushes his hands into his pockets and looks at the ground beneath him. A few feet in front of him is the drop—immense, deep, and utterly terrifying. Harry is drawn to it, the feeling of falling, the relief of letting go. 

But he can’t exactly just walk forward with this person standing here, can he?

“Do you live around here?” Harry asks after a minute. The blond steps a bit closer to him so they can talk more easily over the sound of the wind and waves. Or at least, Harry hopes that’s why. He has a brief image of this man pushing him over the edge, and almost says thank you. 

“Yes, I do. What’re _you_ doing here? Not many people come to see this cliff. It’s rather small,” the man says. Harry’s mind spins through a million lies, but he finds that he’s tired of lying. 

“I bought a painting of this cliff. I had to see it in person,” he says, turning his eyes back down to the water. “I bet that sounds stupid.” 

“No, not at all. It’s flattering, actually,” the man says. The pieces suddenly click together—the blond hair, the strong nose... His eyes snap back up and meet the other man’s grey ones. 

“You’re Draco Malfoy?” Harry asks, disbelief evident in his voice. 

“Yes. Thank you for paying my bills,” Draco says smoothly. Harry almost bristles. This is not what he was expecting today. Actually, he had never expected he’d get to meet Draco Malfoy, and somehow the man is exactly what he should be.

“I’m so enamored with your paintings that I drive three hours up here to see the real thing, and _that’s_ what you say to me?” Harry asks. Draco pushes aside the strand of hair that was getting into his eyes with an irritated look, and then fixes Harry with a stare that could mean anything. Harry doesn’t understand it, so he automatically feels offended. 

“Well, yes,” Draco says slowly, as though speaking to someone stupid. 

Harry is silent for a very long time, tearing his gaze away. He stares over the cliff. The waves are crashing more violently against the rocks. Harry closes his eyes once again, visualizing every detail of the painting—a snapshot frozen in time—and, as usual, he can imagine the man who took one wrong step and had fallen. Harry knows now that _he_ was not that man, because Harry would have jumped. 

He feels as though he suddenly understands Draco. Something in his chest slides into place.

“I came here to jump,” Harry says eventually. He doesn’t look over at Draco to see whatever expression is on his face. 

“So did I, a long time ago,” Draco says. His voice is even and calm, and Harry can’t help but glance over at him to see that he doesn’t look upset. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s grateful for it. 

“But then you painted the cliff instead?” Harry asks. He thinks he gets it, but then Draco goes and proves him wrong. 

“No. I had painted it before, and then I came back because I thought it was a beautiful place to die.” 

Harry’s heart stutters. Draco doesn’t know that Harry thought that to himself a week ago, he reminds himself. 

“Did you come back here today to do that?” Harry asks. He doesn’t think he can say the words “die” or “jump” right now without breaking down completely. He really hopes that Draco didn’t come here for that too. He’s starting to feel dizzy standing so close to the edge. 

“No. I came back because Granger told me you weren’t answering her calls. I’m glad I thought to look here,” he says. Harry takes a shuddering breath, head spinning. He takes a step back, and then another and another. Draco is there with him, matching him step for step, and something about it makes Harry stop and twist his hands in his sweater. 

“I’m not going to jump anymore,” he whispers, looking at his feet. It’s an effort to even out his breathing, to tell himself that _i’m okay it’s okay i didn’t do it._ Draco’s hand lands gently on his shoulder and, instead of making Harry flinch like he usually would if someone did that without warning, he relaxes at the touch. 

“And I won’t let you fall,” Draco says simply. Harry shuts his eyes. It’s almost too much, but Harry realizes that _this_ is what’s been missing. This feeling of _too much_ of the good things. Because Draco is a good thing. Harry is still here because of him—Harry is _Harry_ because of him.

“Take me to wherever you’ve hung my paintings,” Draco says. Harry straightens up, that pale hand sliding off his shoulder, and takes a deep breath. Then one more. He reaches for his keys in his pocket and meets Draco’s eyes.

And then he smiles, something real and complete, and something inside him falls into place. It’s not an immediate fix, and he doesn’t suddenly know what to do. 

But it’s a start. 


End file.
